


Stumbling Through The Great Beyond & Finding Our Way Back

by allthatsleftbehind



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthatsleftbehind/pseuds/allthatsleftbehind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 5. A series of stolen moments, both seen and unseen on the show, that attempt to make the unseen finally visible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumbling Through The Great Beyond & Finding Our Way Back

Regina has seen fate in action enough in her life to recognize its scent immediately now. That doesn't mean she accepts it always, or even that she's particularly receptive to what it has in mind, but fate and Regina are intimately acquainted and have been for a long while now. Never was that more obvious than the moment Emma Swan waltzed into her life those few years ago — my god, has it only been a few years? — complete with red leather jacket, long blonde hair, and a bad attitude. Now, as she looks at the woman before her, that first day seems a lifetime ago, untouchable and sealed off, for better or worse (but it feels so much better).

She isn't sure whether to laugh or cry, watching Emma curse under her breath as she tries desperately to light the Promethean flame that could be the key to saving them all yet again. Regina has eternal faith in her: Swan, the Sheriff, the Savior, the Dark One. Emma. The only one to dive right into the very pit of Regina with such crazed abandon and not run away screaming. The only one to stay, despite everything. She can't bear the way things are, in every sense of the word. Regina wants to be the hero for once, to return the sacrifice she hadn’t felt she deserved and still doesn’t, but her hands feel tied and she’s left looking to Emma for guidance. It’s a strange position for her to be in, she has to admit.

Regina's presence takes Emma by surprise, she can tell, but Regina wastes no time and offers her help, whatever that is. She has magic, but this needs to be Emma's doing. Regina hears the word "friend" come out of her mouth and cringes internally for reasons she can't put her finger on — maybe because it doesn't come close to doing what's between them any amount of justice — and feels her heart thrum out a wild beat. Five minutes ago she’d been inside Granny’s with Robin and the rest of the Storybrooke crew, talking strategy as if there could be such a thing in an unknown battle. Everyone cared about the war but not about the casualties, and she was more worried about Emma than she was about dying. Robin had touched her arm gently in a gesture of, well, love she supposed, and suddenly everything in her told her to get out, get away, find Emma. And that’s exactly what she did.

To say that Regina loves easily and with abandon would be a lie, and she knows it. She spent many years fighting the light in so many senses, and lost everything because of it. It's only recently that she's started truly rebuilding what was lost, and that was because of Emma. That Henry could finally see beyond the Evil Queen to the mother beneath, that the town could give her a chance she surely didn't deserve, that her heart could soften, undarken itself even slightly... that was down to the woman in front of her. What Emma hadn't done for Regina, she'd given Regina the strength to do for herself. To say that Regina loves her is true, of course, but such a small part of the truth that it feels false in all that's left unsaid.

Emma is tired, frustrated, the dark circles beneath her eyes a sign of the struggle she's been engaged in for what already feels like way too long. Regina knows darkness, but only because she chose it for a while; Emma knows it because it's chosen her and she's trying desperately to escape it. The fact that they’re there, in Camelot, with the former Savior as the new Dark One all because Emma — what, loved? cared about? wanted to save? all of the above? — Regina didn't escape either woman, but the only one full of regret was Regina. Emma would have done the same time and time again, and knowing it made her bones rattle within the confines of her skin in ways she couldn't (or at least wouldn't, for now) understand.

“You can lie to your parents, you can lie to yourself… but you can’t lie to me,” Regina says, and they both know it’s true. Seeing the truth was always Emma’s gift, but when it comes to each other, it’s a gift they share easily. Emma shakes her head in frustration, says she doesn’t know why it’s not working, and Regina wants to reach for her then but doesn’t. She knows how good power feels, even if it has the power to destroy you, but she wants to hold onto Emma, to have Emma hold onto her humanity because it’s the only thing capable of fighting off the monsters, whatever they are.

She knows how badly Emma wants to light the flame. She wants to get Excalibur restored, to kill the darkness, to get them all home to Storybrooke and her inability to cast even a spark fills her with a rage she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. She can feel Regina's eyes on her, hear her gentle coaxing, see her picking up the dagger and begging for the truth — the one that had been sitting between them and growing larger with every day despite boyfriends and villains and bad dreams.

"It took a long time, but I really know you," Regina tells her, her chest tight like a fist closing around a throat, cutting off her oxygen. The desperation she feels to give voice to all of this finally and  to know that she's not alone in it all has taken over her. She can’t be wrong. She can’t have misread things, not after all they’ve been through. Regina needs Emma to be brave so that she can be brave and so maybe they can be brave together in a new way. Emma resists, stammers, begs Regina to stop before they go any further, before she spills it all out like a dam breaking, but Regina is relentless and she can see in Emma's eyes that she is grateful, that maybe this could be their salvation.

And then their moment is destroyed by the Charmings and the pirate. Typical. Regina is furious, but more than that, she’s bereft, deflated. She feels as though being robbed of that moment has robbed them both of something greater that they may never have a chance at again. It seems crazy maybe, but no crazier than anything else, considering. Hook grabs the dagger from her hand, severing the vein of magic running between herself and Emma for the moment, but not entirely. Never entirely.

Emma can’t even look at her, keeping her eyes on the forest floor before grabbing the box containing the spark and walking away. Snow snaps at Regina about helping, about being cruel, but what does Snow know? What has she ever known? It isn’t Regina’s fault that the truth is painful, but it is her responsibility to Emma to make her confront it, even if she decides to do nothing after. She knows she’s being selfish, and that her desire to make Emma see her — truly see her — and to choose her is perhaps more than she deserves. But Regina also knows that she hasn’t felt this alive around another human being in her entire life, maybe not even Daniel, and that’s got to be worth fighting for, right?

 


End file.
